


Free body diagrams

by JoCarthage



Series: Long distances and close calls (2020 phone banking accountability fic series) [1]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Gardening, M/M, Political
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:15:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26999545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoCarthage/pseuds/JoCarthage
Summary: Michael grows his garden.--This is a fic series where, after each day of phone banking for the democratic ticket in the US's 2020 presidential election, I will write a fic that's 10x the number of calls I made. So if I make 14 calls, I write and post a 140 word fic. If I make 27 calls, a 270 word fic. Then, as I add more fics to the series, the total word count of the series is the total number of calls I've made divided by 10.For the other people phone banking -- if you are open to sharing your number of calls/texts/postcards (either total, per week, per day) and if my style of writing is your jam, let me know what kind of fic you'd like in the comments or on tumblr (http://jocarthage.tumblr.com) and I'll try to write you a one-shot.If you'd like to start phone banking, you can sign-up for a good, comprehensive training here: https://demvolctr.org. One of my friends from high school is one of the trainers. The training is 40 minutes, then 40 minutes of making practice calls, then 15 minutes of debrief.
Series: Long distances and close calls (2020 phone banking accountability fic series) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1970539
Comments: 18
Kudos: 52





	Free body diagrams

**Author's Note:**

> Today I made 30 calls into Texas*. I'm going to combine it with the 14 I made into Pennsylvania my training last Thursday.
> 
> I'll add tags and characters as I go!
> 
> *Actually, it had been 27, but then I couldn't edit this piece past 440, so I logged back in and made 3 more calls. So the process works!

Michael knelt, elbow deep in the dirt: "I know you don't want to do this," he grunted at the palo verde tree he was trying to transplant, "I know you're better than this."

The spiky-barked sapling with its florescent green skin didn't reply. Michael had heard through Isobel's grapevine that Janet Long had a volunteer palo verde in her side yard she wanted gone; he'd offered to do the labor half-price if she let him take the plant. So here he was, the New Mexico spring sunset like burnished gold on his bare back, covered in mud with twiggy spikes in his hair, talking to a tree. 

"You can do this," he muttered, whether to himself or the thin-skinned sapling, he had no earthly idea. "You're going to be in a better place, you just have to let go."

He hefted the hose, re-flooding the ring he'd dug out around the dripzone, washing down the pale penumbra of anchor roots. 

All he had left was the taproot.

It was the first thing they developed, anchoring them to the hard desert soil, keeping them upright through floods and feeding them through droughts.

And right now, its taproot was going to kill it.

It would kill the tree if he had to cut the taproot. Ms Long would kill this tree if he couldn't get it out, have Wyatt chop it up and leave its beautiful photosynthesizing skin to a dull amber death on the curb.

So he had to convince it to let go.

He shoved his hand into the mud, feeling for the wrist-thick root. He closed his eyes. He'd taken a physics class, his junior year, one of the only classes he'd shared with Alex. He'd learned to draw free body diagrams in it, with arrows representing the direction and force of gravity, of wind, of a shove. He could see all of the forces acting on this tree, on its netting of feeder roots; what was holding it down; what was holding it back. All the forces in the world. 

Michael was the force that was going to save it.

He gripped the root, surrounding every follicle with a slick skin of water. 

And then he lifted.

It must have been 250 lbs, root to crown, but still he stood. He carried it to his truck, sunlight gilding its golden flowers, the wind in its petal-like leaves, taproot trailing behind. High summer was coming soon and there were some people he wanted to be able to visit him at the junkyard. People he wanted to see him growing, people he wanted lie beside, comfortable in the dappled shade.

**Author's Note:**

> Top quotes from today's phone banking:  
> \- Janet (90): "I will not vote for Trump. If he was the last person on earth, I wouldn't vote for him."  
> \- Shirley (69): "If he was on fire, I'd throw gasoline on him."


End file.
